Patients who may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis because of poor sterilization practices and other problems at a Saddle Brook surgery center should be tested repeatedly for months, not just once, lawyers for one of the patients said Friday. They cited an expert who said it can take years for those diseases to develop.

The lawyers for David Kinlock, a former patient at HealthPlus Surgery Center in Saddle Brook, asked a New Jersey Superior Court judge on Friday to take action immediately to warn the patients and protect the public.

Meanwhile, a HealthPlus spokesman said that no positive test results have been reported so far that are “attributable to any prospective exposure at HealthPlus.”

The spokesman, Ron Simoncini, would not say how many test results have been reported. Positive results for any of the diseases would be reported to the state Department of Health.

HealthPlus previously reported that 344 patients had been tested as of Jan. 3, with “no positive results known to be associated with HealthPlus.” Some patients may have been infected with HIV or hepatitis prior to their procedure at HealthPlus and not known it, the facility has said, but the results would turn up in the recent tests.

HealthPlus, located at 190 Midland Ave., was shut down by the New Jersey Health Department from Sept. 7-27 after inspectors found “lapses in infection control” in the sterilization and cleaning of instruments and the way medications were injected.

The state required HealthPlus to notify patients who had procedures between Jan. 1 and Sept. 7 that they may have been exposed to three blood-borne diseases – HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C – and should have their blood checked. HealthPlus arranged and paid for blood tests to be analyzed by LabCorp. It said it sent certified letters in late December to 3,778 patients.

The state health department specified what tests should be done, HealthPlus has said. “HealthPlus has complied with all requests and requirements from the Department of Health,” resulting from the Sept. 7 inspection, “including testing protocols,” the HealthPlus statement Friday said.

Media was allowed in to take photos and videos of the surgical waiting area at HealthPlus Surgery Center, on December 29, 2018, as part of a press conference to demonstrate what the center is doing to comply with NJ Department of Health regulations. The facility was closed by the NJ Department of Health recently for not complying with certain regulations.(Photo: Chris Pedota, NorthJersey.com-USA Today Network)

The surgery center said it would develop a program to call and otherwise contact the patients, but Simoncini did not provide any updated information Friday about the number of patients notified.

On Friday, attorneys for Kinlock, a Newark man who had a procedure at HealthPlus, asked Essex County Judge Bridget A. Stecher to hold an emergency hearing.

She should bar HealthPlus from communicating directly with former patients, because its previous notice to patients was “misleading” and “failed to provide essential lifesaving medical information,” the legal papers said.

“The letter they put out was literally just one small step,” Michael Galpern, one of the attorneys representing Kinlock, said in an interview Friday. “They thought it was the entire journey, but it’s not. You can’t test somebody and say, ‘You tested negative. You’re good to go.’”

Evidence of infection with HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C might not show up in a blood test for six to 12 months, Galpern said, and might not cause a patient to develop symptoms for 15 to 20 years.

The judge should order corrected information to be sent advising the patients to consult their primary care doctors immediately and refrain from unprotected sex or the sharing of toothbrushes or razor blades – actions that exchange bodily fluids -- until a full course of testing is complete, the filing said.